Why Is Everyone Talking About Open Source Software In Higher Education Institutions?

 

The Open Source Initiative explained the importance of open source software (OSS) in higher education institutions on February 26 (US time) at " The Value of Open Source Software In Higher Education | Open Source Initiative ".

In addition to ensuring institutional flexibility and innovating, OSS is said to have significant value in the current situation where student debt is rapidly increasing.

The article mentions that a major reason for adopting OSS is that no license fees are required. This pointed out that this is an important point at the time when student debt is rapidly increasing. He also explained that the use of OSS has high value even if the costs of introduction are taken into account, since the budget of higher education institutions is limited.

In addition, New York University introduces successful cases of using open source software. According to the university, the introduction work was divided into the following five stages as shown below.

1. Conduct detailed surveys and consult users
2. Evaluate priorities for requests
3. Build a solution
4. Backport development artifacts to the original community
5. Deploy solutions to meet user requirements

According to the article, OSS can be used, and the development costs can be reduced to the open source community, thereby reducing future maintenance costs.

There are many organizations that use OSS because of its low cost, but there are not many companies and organizations that can go further and have a friendly relationship with the community and merge the deliverables into the original. However, it is believed that organizations that can accomplish these tasks can reduce future maintenance costs, build friendships with the community, and operate in a better ecosystem.